The Fair Maid of Perth | Page 6

townsman, that voluntarily offered for a small piece of coin to supply his place in the mortal encounter--suggested the imaginary persons, on whom much of the novel is expended. The fugitive Celt might have been easily dealt with, had a ludicrous style of colouring been adopted; but it appeared to the Author that there would be more of novelty, as well as of serious interest, if he could succeed in gaining for him something of that sympathy which is incompatible with the total absence of respect. Miss Baillie had drawn a coward by nature capable of acting as a hero under the strong impulse of filial affection. It seemed not impossible to conceive the case of one constitutionally weak of nerve being supported by feelings of honour and of jealousy up to a certain point, and then suddenly giving way, under circumstances to which the bravest heart could hardly refuse compassion.
The controversy as to who really were the clans that figured in the barbarous conflict of the Inch has been revived since the publication of the Fair Maid of Perth, and treated in particular at great length by Mr. Robert Mackay of Thurso, in his very curious History of the House and Clan of Mackay. Without pretending to say that he has settled any part of the question in the affirmative, this gentleman certainly seems to have quite succeeded in proving that his own worthy sept had no part in the transaction. The Mackays were in that age seated, as they have since continued to be, in the extreme north of the island; and their chief at the time was a personage of such importance, that his name and proper designation could not have been omitted in the early narratives of the occurrence. He on one occasion brought four thousand of his clan to the aid of the royal banner against the Lord of the Isles. This historian is of opinion that the Clan Quhele of Wyntoun were the Camerons, who appear to have about that period been often designated as Macewans, and to have gained much more recently the name of Cameron, i.e. Wrynose, from a blemish in the physiognomy of some heroic chief of the line of Lochiel. This view of the case is also adopted by Douglas in his Baronage, where he frequently mentions the bitter feuds between Clan Chattan and Clan Kay, and identifies the latter sept in reference to the events of 1396, with the Camerons. It is perhaps impossible to clear up thoroughly this controversy, little interesting in itself, at least to readers on this side of Inverness. The names, as we have them in Wyntoun, are "Clanwhewyl" and "Clachinya," the latter probably not correctly transcribed. In the Scoti Chronicon they are "Clanquhele" and "Clankay. Hector Boece writes Clanchattan" and "Clankay," in which he is followed by Leslie while Buchanan disdains to disfigure his page with their Gaelic designations at all, and merely describes them as two powerful races in the wild and lawless region beyond the Grampians. Out of this jumble what Sassenach can pretend dare lucem? The name Clanwheill appears so late as 1594, in an Act of James VI. Is it not possible that it may be, after all, a mere corruption of Clan Lochiel?
The reader may not be displeased to have Wyntoun's original rhymes [bk. ix. chap. xvii.]:
A thousand and thre hundyr yere, Nynty and sex to mak all clere-- Of thre scor wyld Scottis men, Thretty agane thretty then, In felny bolnit of auld fed, [Boiled with the cruelty of an old feud] As thare forelderis ware slane to dede. Tha thre score ware clannys twa, Clahynnhe Qwhewyl and Clachinyha; Of thir twa kynnis ware tha men, Thretty agane thretty then; And thare thai had than chiftanys twa, Scha Ferqwharis' son wes ane of tha, The tother Cristy Johnesone. A selcouth thing be tha was done. At Sanct Johnestone besid the Freris, All thai entrit in barreris Wyth bow and ax, knyf and swerd, To deil amang thaim thare last werd. Thare thai laid on that time sa fast, Quha had the ware thare at the last I will noucht say; hot quha best had, He wes but dout bathe muth and mad. Fifty or ma ware slane that day, Sua few wyth lif than past away.
The prior of Lochleven makes no mention either of the evasion of one of the Gaelic champions, or of the gallantry of the Perth artisan, in offering to take a share in the conflict. Both incidents, however, were introduced, no doubt from tradition, by the Continuator of Fordun [Bower], whose narrative is in these words:
Anno Dom. millesimo trecentesimo nonagesimo sexto, magna pars borealis Scotiae, trans Alpes, inquietata fuit per duos pestiferos Cateranos, et eorum sequaces, viz. Scheabeg et suos consanguinarios, qui Clankay, et